Have you gone through ages 27-30 yet? People often speak of Saturn returns as if they are as ominous or more intense than the common woeful Mercury retrograde. Just as a true understanding of Mercury retrograde shows how valuable the energy of that time can be to you, a true understanding of a Saturn return will help you embrace and use it so you can develop into a wiser, kinder, and more fulfilled version of yourself.

　　First, let me get you up to speed on what a Saturn return is. It’s a 29.5-year cycle that people experience two or three times in their life. When the planet Saturn has gone through all 12 zodiac signs and returns to the position in the sky it was at the time of someone’s birth, it has a karmic influence which makes the individual aware of how all their behaviours are affecting others and wakes them up to their life purpose so they can mature. The term ‘Saturn Returns’ usually refers to the age 27-30 time period where people experience change and challenges in their life that help them mature as a right of passage.

　　That means that if someone has been ignoring their soul and not taking care of themselves, they can experience extreme events that make them see this reality. Perhaps your Saturn return will finally wake you up to realize life doesn’t have to be one big party so you can learn to find pleasure in being a person with integrity who contributes to society.

　　

The Benefits of This Right of Passage

A Saturn return usually marks the time where people stop living for their own personal gain and start looking to seek happiness in being a better person. This could come from a bad drinking episode, losing a job, breaking up with someone over bad habits, or people calling you out on your irritating behaviours. Everyone is capable of self reflection and taking responsibility for their actions if they choose to change their lives. If we stop blaming others for our unhappiness and try to live with more compassion, these wake up calls can be very helpful and life-changing.

　　There are no negative experiences if you look at them as lessons. Sometimes it’s easy for us to get into routine ways of doing things in our life that aren’t actually true to what our heart is telling us to do. Most people do not follow their heart’s calling out of fear and they feel they must conform to what makes sense so they can live up to the standards they believe they should be fitting into by certain ages in their life.

　　Often, we are living our lives according to what we feel obligated to do, trying to fit in and please others to find validation and happiness. Yet this type of living can prove to be very empty and not at all what our souls want us to do. The soul will often whack us over the head with an experience that makes us question if we are living our lives with the proper goals that will provide real happiness. We will often start asking questions about the deeper meaning of life and change our lifestyles after rearranging our core beliefs. It’s a time of finding independence of thought and revelation.

　　

How To Prepare For a Saturn Return

If we want to take the intensity out of this right of passage, we can start to learn ways to follow the calling in our heart more fully and begin to take responsibility for our own words and actions today.

　　For those who have already been through their first Saturn return, you can continue this process and prepare for the next one. We can all share our wisdom with people who are open to advice who don’t know where to go to find the answers that elude them about their purpose in life.

　　One way to prepare for a Saturn return is to start journaling during meditation about what your true purpose is and if you’re living a purposeful life. If you’re not, you could start to brainstorm what that would look like and how you can step into that new reality. Write down what fears may be keeping you from following a path of higher purpose and what people in your life are influencing your way of thinking. You can even work with a spiritual counsellor to help you work through those fears to find how to release them.

　　Visualizing what you want to do with your life that feels meaningful can help you begin to see a new way of living that is from your heart and feels safe within the deepest part of you. You can search online and find out what your soul came here to learn and grow into by looking up your North Node in your birth chart. The South Node will reveal your challenges and any residual past-life karma you carry. If your North Node is in Capricorn, you may be called to start a company that provides services and jobs for the community or develop a long-term business plan with a partner. That’s just an example.

　　

Concluding Thoughts…

To stretch our minds for a moment, let’s think about the truth of who we are: souls having a human experience. We come to learn how to love more and be more kind in each lifetime, developing into a purer soul so we can help others and evolve the energy of the entire planet. In each lifetime we are trying to wake up to the true identity of our soul again and then align with what we came here to do.

　　When we realize this bigger picture, we can get clear with our priorities and feel safe living in our bodies again. We no longer feel like we are in competition or like we have to compete in the rat race. When we listen to the wisdom of the healers channelled from higher states of consciousness, it helps us remember who we are. We can then use the tools of meditation and astrology as a map to read our purpose and be able to shed the identity of our ego that warps our intentions in selfish ways that pit us against each other and usually wind up bringing us right back to the same question of who am I and why am I really here?

　　Related Article: Taking A Closer Look At Saturn: The Lord of Karma